Observing story 22 July

[Guest]

Lets start by saying we had thunderstorms in the area late in the afternoon, so things were definitely not going to be stellar, but what the heck lets set the 10 inch and 16 inch up and see what happens. This part of Ohio is Bortle 4 so the skys are so so anyway. It was fairly humid, right around 80% and the temp was in the high 70s. Dew control would be the name of the game tonight, dew shields went on the 16 and the 10 inch had her heaters on before we ever started. The moon was drifting away from me in the southwest and i had placed the big scope in a spot that would get me a bit of the north east sky. I decided what the heck and turned the 16 towards the moon and dropped the 8.5mm ES 82 degree in. Ok its the moon, but at 218x the details in the craters and alpine valleys were just splendid. I swapped out the 8.5 for a 5mm and hit 360x.... Magnificent Desolation. I just drifted across the craters and mountains before she disappeared behind the tree. If nothing else it confirmed that the seeing was good and my collimation was perfect. Off to the deep sky. M13 is always a must see and there is nothing more fun then sitting on top of a ladder trying not to fall off and handling a dob at apex, as always M13 did not disappoint. I am sure this has to be a optical illusion but does anyone else think M13 rotates counter clockwise? I would swear it does. Has to be a trick of the eye. I spent a good half hour bouncing back and forth from the 10 to the 16 looking at the cluster. I was trying to keep things fairly even using a 20mm in the 10 inch and a 24mm in the 16. Time to move on. M81 and 82 were next. Something was up with that area of the sky, it just wasnt real stable there and i was getting thin clouds. So it was hit and miss there. After fighting with it for a half hour i declared that effort lost and moved on. Time for a challange. M51 in skies that were not so good. I didnt even try with the 10 inch. With it on a clear night you can see something, just enough to know you are seeing it and not much more, but with the 16, well there were definitely 2 galaxies side by side. In tonights skies i will take it. I spent another 30 minutes just looking at it and letting it fill in a bit. I would almost swear i could just start to see the spiral arms and then they would disappear. I will be back to that on a better night. I decided to hit up M92. Now it isn't as good as M13 but it is no slouch either. She was nice and bright in both scopes. Last I figured i would give M31 a go. She showed up faintly in the Stellarvue finder and i knew this would not be good, she was still
Too low to be clear, and sure enough in the eyepiece she was a fuzzball lost in the glow on the horizon. Will try that again later. I called it a night as the thin clouds were now thicker clouds. The scopes are drying out in the garage and the eyepieces are in front of a fan. While it was far from a perfect night it was the best night i have had since last year.

[bosun21]

Nice report Mike 👍.

[Guest]

28 minutes ago, bosun21 said:

Nice report Mike 👍.

Its entertaining if nothing else LOL 

[cajen2]

Good session, good report, Mike!

[Guest]

1 hour ago, cajen2 said:

Good session, good report, Mike!

Thanks 

[josefk]

Nice one Mike - with your cloud and with the wildfire smoke earlier in the year i think you were due a good session 🙂 !

[Guest]

1 minute ago, josefk said:

Nice one Mike - with your cloud and with the wildfire smoke earlier in the year i think you were due a good session 🙂 !

Yeah we finally caught a break here.  The transparency could have been better, and it will be getting better as our air continues to clear out from the smoke and clouds.